I am considering Solus as the OS for a relative's somewhat aging, but still capable desktop. The machine in question has an older nvidia card that will not be supported by proprietary drivers for kernels newer than 5.4. I know from experience that nouveau drivers are too laggy to be usable. Luckily Solus also comes with a LTS kernel, but I'm having trouble finding information which kernel versions will be supported and for how long. My questsion is, will Solus let me extend the machine's life or am I better off either choosing a different distro or upgrading the hardware?
Kernels
paracetamol We are retiring the 340 drivers for both the 5.4 and the 4.9 kernels.
nouveau
is quite fine unless you're gaming or doing 3D intensive work. If they're just using the machine to browse the web, watch a few videos and do word processing it'll be fine.
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Thanks, but I already put Ubuntu on that machine and was met with a pleasant surprise, as Eoan Ermine runs super smooth. I certainly don't remember Ubuntu being this performant.
DataDrake I'm trying both the current and the LTS kernels for a while to see how programs work. Will both kernels stay up to date and if I have made up my mind in a few weeks time, how do I just stick to one and delete the other?
It's easier to switch kernels in Solus than MX Linux or Manjaro, very fluid task to do. Very nice!
lekkerlinux Like explained in the doc (link on the top navigation bar).
kyrios Yes thanks, Kyrios, I read the document. Just to make sure I understood it correctly, the following question.
If after testing both the LTS and currant kernels I now have on my system, I can make the LTS kernel my default by using sudo clr-boot-manager update?
On the other hand when I was using Antergos before the project went dead, I kept both kernels, just in case one started acting up, especially the latest one.
If I keep both kernels, will they both keep on updating?
Thanks for all the help. Solus works well, just fine tuning for my own needs.
lekkerlinux It's pretty useless to keep both kernels since Solus keeps the previous version of the kernel when it's updated so you can easily rollback in case of problem see the doc.
If you want to make the LTS the default kernel, boot on it, the run the clr-boot-management command.
kyrios Thanks, I understand.